Don’t buy it then. Vote with your wallet. It’s the only vote that counts.
In fact, the democracy of the free market does not agree with you, at all.
This is not a compulsory purchase, it is a rather bad transmog set. People will buy it. Considering the labor that went into it versus how much they’ll make off of it, the profit margin on one transmog set is insane compared to the entire Shadowlands, plus all your subscriptions for 2 years.
Hear it out - you have one set for $20. Then you have Shadowlands - $40, plus $15x24 months for a total of $400. So your entire Shadowlands experience is the value of around 20 transmog sets. All the zones, the voice acting, quests, cinematics, cutscenes, dungeons, raids, and the 3-4 content patches down the line. And I didn’t even mention the transmog sets we are getting with shadowlands. How many are there on release? 10? 15?
Now consider this. Since 2004, we’ve seen an inflation of 35.74%. That means, had WoW kept up with inflation, the sub cost would be around $21 now. WoW has become significantly cheaper over the years. You’re spending $180 a year on subs, when in fact you should be spending $252 a year if the game kept up with inflation. You get 2 itemshop vanity items per year, for a total of $40 (and you can get them for free if you choose a better subscription plan), so even that puts you at $32 less than what the game would cost had it kept with inflation.
WoW’s subscription-exclusive plan is rather doomed, you have capitalism to thank for that. In order to simply keep up with inflation, Blizz has to either jack up the sub cost or introduce alternative monetizations.
If you compare the costs of literally everything has skyrocketed over the past 15 years. Only games haven’t kept up with inflation. In fact, 2020 is the first year since the 50s when we’re seeing negative inflation (which has its problems, like making the real value of debt go up, but overall it makes money worth more)
